Minimizing the increasing solid waste through zero waste strategy

Increasing population, booming economy, rapid urbanization and the rise in community living standards have significantly accelerated the solid waste generation in the world. Solid waste has become one of the global environmental issues. Continuous depletion of natural finite resources is leading the globe to an uncertain future. To prevent further depletion of global resources, sustainable consumption and a strategic waste management system would be required. One approach that has been suggested as a means of addressing these concerns is that of the concepts of Zero Waste. However, transforming currently over-consuming activities into zero waste is still challenging. In this study, the challenges of solid waste (focusing on industrial waste e-waste, food waste and packaging waste), zero waste practices, and zero waste strategy were discussed to analyze the challenges and opportunities to transform traditional waste management toward zero waste vision. Zero Waste is a good solution to minimizing the increasing solid waste. However, in order to minimize the solid waste, there are still more endeavors need to be done in future. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.